Paris, Wednesday 22 April 2015 – Following the complaint we filed on 23 March against Vinci Construction Grands Projetsand its subsidiary Qatarie for forced labour and servitude, Vinci is not only suing the Sherpa association for defamation, but also certain Sherpa employees. By involving us in this costly procedure, Vinci is clearly trying to force us to withdraw our complaint through lack of funds. Despite the size of the amounts asked for, we are pleased that the problem of human rights currently being violated by French multi-nationals abroad is once again at the centre of public debate.
On 14 April, Vinci summoned Sherpa’s president William Bourdon to appear at the High Court in Paris on Friday 26 June as well as, on an individual basis, the director Laetitia Liebert and the lawyer Marie-Laure Guislain who lodged the complaint against Vinci Construction. The Sherpa association could be made to pay 405,000 euros and Laetitia Liebert and Marie-Laure Guislain jointly 203,000 euros, an amount which would include the legal fine, compensatory damages and publications of the decision requested by Vinci.
The multinationals often use this kind of costly procedure to discourage less wealthy claimants. We were expecting this kind of reaction which is called SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation, or ‘poursuite bâillon’ in French).
The idea behind this common counterattack is to threaten individuals or organisations with a lawsuit to dissuade them from reporting certain facts. The success of this procedure does not result so much from a victory in front of the courts as from the procedure itself which aims to intimidate the defence or reduce it to silence by ruining it financially.
We remain confident because we have proof of what we are putting forward and we will not abandon our mandate which is to ensure that human rights are respected and to defend the victims of economic crimes in whichever country the multinationals are working in.
We are delighted that Vinci’s complaint gives us another opportunity to open up public debate on the respect of workers’ fundamental rights on its construction sites in Qatar. Our actions have already produced results because Vinci’s spokesmen have been obliged to answer for their practices and above all have reported improvements to working conditions on their construction sites in Qatar since the enquiry and in the future. We hope that these declarations will be followed up with concrete and tangible improvements in the living and working conditions in place there.
Sign the petition to open a preliminary enquiry against Vinci Construction!
